I am a hockey fan first and a red wings fan second. and this league and the refs are ruining the game I love so much.
do the sharks deservde to move on sure, but do i think the red wings could have moved on without the bad calls sure.

another thing is the goals going in off feet. some thing needs to be done about this either make not goals be allowed to go in off the feet or all goals are allowed in regardless of a kicking motion.

As someone that cares for the game of hockey very much, the NHL has disappointed me as a HOCKEY fan very much since the lockout.

and THIS was a SEVEN game series! This year's Sharks/Wings series was 2 less games, and each team scored the same amount of goals and and the Wings lost...

just a weird stat. O_O

EDIT: typo on Game 2's goals... I originally had DET 3, Pit 2 -- but it was DET 3, Pit 1. and the total I originally had was DETROIT 17, PITTSBURGH 15.so the opposing team scored one LESS goal total last year (PIT - 14) compared to this year (SJ - 15)... still weird!

If it weren't for luck, Phil Hellmuth would win every Texas Hold'em tournament he ever entered (according to him). If it weren't for the Refs, the Wings would win the Stanley Cup every year with a 96-0 record.

For what it's worth, I don't feel that the problem lies in the refereeing, but more at the NHL level. I think the organization, for the past few years, has made a conscious effort to inform their refs that come playoff time, extra effort should be spent on 'getting it right'. I really think this has backfired and made refs hyper-critical over the past few playoffs. The microscopes come out, with good intentions, and everything gets magnified until it no longer makes sense. This year was no exception, and you can even add faceoffs to the debacle.

This is my take on it, from the persepective of a pre-lockout-purist-snob

I didn't even watch the last 2 games. I knew what the outcome would be.

Especially after we molested them in game 4, there was no way they were going to call a fair game. Heavens no, that might result in another game that would have Joe Casual changing the channel by the midway point.

This whole series was a f***in joke. I've watched hockey for over 20 years, hundreds of games a year, I've made a profession out of writing about the game and nitpicking officiating and play of the players. I know horrible when I see it.

I also know that most people will never admit something is crooked until it bites them, specifically, in the ass. It takes guts to admit something you love is tainted, either with bias or just poor reffing. That's why most people go into denial and just call people whiners, or conspiracy theorists or whatever else. They can't bring themselves to admit their favorite game isn't totally fair.

I'm sure some NBA fans felt the same way until they found out the league was fixed and had officials throwing games. I once read an article from a stat-keeper who exposed everyone he worked for, saying that he was once even threatened to make up better stats for home players or he'd be fired. Sports are not fair. Not anymore.

And this series was the worst I've ever seen. Worse than that 09 Finals screw-job. Worse than that Buffalo/Dallas series in 99, worse than the league doing everything they could to keep Pittsburgh in game 6 in 08. THE. WORST. EVER.

I get some people don't want to appear as a whiner or a "Mulder" in public, but personally, being honest is more important to me and I know what I saw. Detroit didn't play amazing, but neither did SJ. Clearly there were two different sets of rules for one team in blue and one in red.

These are my biggest gripes...

1) The Sharks were diving like it was the goddamn Olympics. And everytime a blue shirt fell over, and a red shirt was within 5 feet of it, regardless of whether or not we had anything to do with it....we were getting a penalty. Look how often a RW player felt he had to raise his arms in innocence. SJ players didn't do that-for a reason. They didn't feel subconsciously as if they had to. We all know Darren Helm has poor balance and is sometimes too fast for his own good. Yet of all the players in 12 games between Detroit, Phoenix and SJ....Helm was the only one called for diving? Are youf****** KIDDING?! Not one Shark was called for that? That was the biggest display of diving I've seen since the lockout, and I'm not kidding. Setoguchi should have his pansy ass sent away from hockey if he's going to keep disrespecting it. He's the worst of them all. My gripe, is for all the soft garbage calls against us, not one diving call was called on a team where they were clearly instructed to dive like ******* for 5 games.

2) The stuff they let go, and the stuff they don't, can help a team beyond just the 2 minute penalty. It tires some players out, puts a kink in all of the lines and makes changes tougher. It scrambles everything up and possibly the biggest thing of all-it can swing momentum on a dime. Poor officiating goes far beyond just sitting for 2 or less. Those 2 5-on-3's were total bulls***. Would we have won if they didn't get them? Who knows, but our chances would've been alot better. If we would've won, no one would've mentioned for a second that we were playing as poorly as some people claim we were. Winning does that. Their GWGs came directly from poor calls. If those calls don't happen, we're not in the scenario to make a mistake and our mistake doesn't exist.

3) This one is more with the fans. We can rag on a player to the point where we'll call a player a piece of human s***, literally. But we won't ever criticize the officials. Huh!? Sorry but I hold the officials to the same standards I hold the players to. Why not? It's their job, just like the players. They directly influence the outcome, just like the players and possibly more than them. To never blame the officials is to indicate you think they're perfect, or you're just not really open and honest. Think about that.

4) Franzen can get smoked, but the second Bertuzzi puts his hands anywhere near another player he's gone for 2 or less. Has anyone else noticed this? Bert gets the s*** end of the stick all the time. Ever since "the incident", he gets watched like a hawk, worse than Homer, and players can beat on him and get nothing called on them. It's embarrassing. I feel like my sport is becoming (*puke*) the NBA.

5) Please, refs, if you can't tell the difference between hooking, and holding the stick, ALLOW THE VIDEO REPLAY JUDGES TO HELP. We're not in 1990 anymore, so along with upgrading those laughably atrocious cameras, let's allow the new technology of our day and age to help improve the game. If you're unsure as to who took what penalty, don't confer and get into a pow-wow with 3 other zebras who also have no idea. USE REPLAYS. Why not? Do it on the fly. Have someone watching replays enough so that by the time you confirm you're unsure who took what penalty, you can call up to the war room and they'll know already. This wouldn't work? Well s***, what we're doing now isn't working either.

I don't have a problem admitting when our players screwed up. Against Edmonton, we were just lazy and didn't feel like breaking through the trap. Against Anaheim we were into a defensive system that forced us to take poor shots. Against Calgary we had too much dead weight and they played harder. But it's series like the ones agaisnt Anaheim, Pittsburgh and SJ where we were just bent over and given a dose of Gary's Own.

I don't really trust the NHL. I haven't for awhile. Sports are corrupt, right down to much simpler, smaller sports than the NHL. This usually leads to blind mockery by others, who assume I think the sport is fixed. It's not that black or white, but good luck explaining that to them. To me, it's a shade of grey. I'm well aware poor reffing occurs in alot of games, but in a league where it's clearly about profit and entertainment, do you really think they'll sit back and just let it decide itself? 100%? You don't think for a second that they, while not fixing the games, would prefer a certain team won and subtly swayed one way or another?

...I also know that most people will never admit something is crooked until it bites them, specifically, in the ass. It takes guts to admit something you love is tainted, either with bias or just poor reffing. That's why most people go into denial and just call people whiners, or conspiracy theorists or whatever else. They can't bring themselves to admit their favorite game isn't totally fair.

I'm sure some NBA fans felt the same way until they found out the league was fixed and had officials throwing games. I once read an article from a stat-keeper who exposed everyone he worked for, saying that he was once even threatened to make up better stats for home players or he'd be fired. Sports are not fair. Not anymore.

...Sports are corrupt, right down to much simpler, smaller sports than the NHL. This usually leads to blind mockery by others, who assume I think the sport is fixed. It's not that black or white, but good luck explaining that to them. To me, it's a shade of grey. I'm well aware poor reffing occurs in alot of games, but in a league where it's clearly about profit and entertainment, do you really think they'll sit back and just let it decide itself? 100%? You don't think for a second that they, while not fixing the games, would prefer a certain team won and subtly swayed one way or another?

Amen. But get ready for ten responses calling you a tin foil hat wearer.

I want to say refs should be shot for 4 out of 5 games this series, but ultimately Sharks were a better team so Wings lost the series in a team effort... Sharks are a good team and should have had more success the past 3 years maybe its their year finally... With Hudler back and Howard more experiences with some minor tweaks and health Wings should look good next year. I think they simply ran out of gas...

1. The NHL benefits from the Wings winning and going deep. The Wings sell significantly more merch than any other franchise, and they get a cut of it. I don't see any motive for the entire NHL as an organization to be trying to undermine the Wings, and have yet to see a real argument to convince me otherwise. The Maple Leafs' fans do this exact same kind of conspiratorial whining, and while they're not exactly the same caliber as the Wings are consistently, the tone of complaining is pretty much the same.

2. The first goal of game 5, Franzen pulled the stick out of Thornton's hand, effectively removing him from play, and the Wings scored. Malhotra was tripped on his break away. Pavelski was cross-checked in the back while going for a line change because Bert knew the refs weren't looking. In the last 2 minutes, Franzen cross-checked Nichol in the face after the whistle blew. No call. Then, 30 seconds later, there's the Boyle holding call, which could go either way, but seemed to go against the let 'em play hockey that was going on at the tail end of the game. So let's not pretend that the Wings were the clear and unbiased victims of the refs. I know that that was not the spirit in which this thread was started, and I would suggest keeping it that way.

3. I agree that Bert gets more calls than he deserves, but he's earned a rep. He knows this, too. Games should be called individually, based on the rules, to the best of the ref's ability and not based on who is out on the ice. However, the refs don't have slo-mo instant replay or multiple camera angles or review time. This is a fact of the game. As such, there's going to be a bias against certain players and they're going to be watched. The thing is, every team has those guys, and Bert gets watched the same as, say, Clowe, and he took a lot of stupid penalties in this series. That doesn't mean that he "deserves" the holding call he got in game 5, but it does mean he doesn't get the benefit of the doubt. If Bert isn't willing to take that risk for his team, he has to police himself. Others have done it, he could, too.

4. Refs are fallible, and the rules exist as they're called on the ice and not in some absolute sense. I understand that the Wings lost and that was a factor as far as many here are concerned, but consider the alternatives: review every play, double the number of refs on the ice, make every call reviewable, allow games to be rolled back for missed penalties... I'd love to hear suggestions that aren't going to ankle the game. About the only alternative people who complain about the reffing have is "just hire people who aren't idiots." I'm very sure that the refs in the NHL aren't idiots, and that you aren't going to improve the reffing by getting new people in. It's a hard game to call, especially when everyone on the ice is gaming the system as much as they think they can get away with. The only way to change that would require significantly altering the game, which would be much, much worse. The puck is going to deflect unfavorably off of the linesmen, calls are going to be missed, others called wrong, others made up based on what the ref thinks happened rather than what he saw. It sucks, but the alternatives are worse.

1. The NHL benefits from the Wings winning and going deep. The Wings sell significantly more merch than any other franchise, and they get a cut of it. I don't see any motive for the entire NHL as an organization to be trying to undermine the Wings, and have yet to see a real argument to convince me otherwise. The Maple Leafs' fans do this exact same kind of conspiratorial whining, and while they're not exactly the same caliber as the Wings are consistently, the tone of complaining is pretty much the same.

It's whining because you don't see the forest for the trees? It sounds like instead of thinking about it, you blindly dismissed it as whining. A common misconception.

The Wings are going to sell no matter what. They could lose for 5 straight years like we just did and it wouldn't matter. The league knows they've "got us". Now a team like SJ, that's in a massive market. California is a gigantic dollar sign and from a business perspective, it'd make alot more sense to try and build interest there with a nice "finally not choking" storyline, rather than just flogging us with the same Red Wings team most people either love, or hate.

Now as a disclaimer, this isn't necessarily what I think happened, it's just what would make the most sense business-wise.

And no one is implying we got us free and clear-no one ever does. It's that it so significantly favored them that we'd may as well have. That has to be obvious, don't start arguments over nothing.

And you can't seriously be justifying reputation calls. That's not hockey. You can't tell me how it is.

How is Bert supposed to police himself when he's playing by the rules? Dives aren't his fault. They're the refs fault(s). Seriously, you're trying to imply that it's somehow Bertuzzi's fault because an official can't do his job? Why the excuses for the stripes but not the red? Why is it OK for a professional referee to not do his job? I don't care if it's a fast game. That's such a crutch.

As for the officiating, I thought I covered that but maybe you didn't read it. Not my problem but I'll say it again-it's entirely possible to have more eyes watching the game off the ice and in the even they're needed, it shouldn't take more than the few seconds it'd take to converse with the other officials on the ice. With our technology today, it may be even quicker.

Haven't really read initial responses as this is the first time I've signed on today but this is a topic that interests me right off the bat.

More often than not, I absolutely cannot stand when fans of a team simply cannot accept that their team lost. Losing is a part of life in sports, it is going to happen. Don't get me wrong, I love watching the Wings and my other teams, rarely miss games, but my sports watching has it's place in life, and that's it. I typically don't get too pissy or glum if my team loses a game to where it ruins my daily life or work, no matter how big/little the game.

So, I cannot stand claims of bias or anti-bias or officiating or other external forces usually in a team losing more often than not. It makes fans sound bitter and whiney and like a bunch of kids.

Now, with that being said, the Sharks were the better team this series, but not that much even though they took just 5 games to win it. So I will give the Sharks their fair credit.

However, this was one of the worst officated series and handful of games, in any sport. Of course I'm a Wings fan so I'd be biased a bit more, but when you have professional analysts chiming in that the officiaing was bad, at least for one game (game 2), you know you got some problems.

I hate when fans get on soapboxes like I described above, but I absolutely also cannot stand officiating incompetency where they play a bigger hand than necessary in determining the outcomes of games. And it happened way too much this series.

I can accept that the Wings lost this series and the Sharks were the better team just enough. The officiating though was much more of a factor in this series and that is a shame. Not trying to sound pissy or making excuses, it was just an unfortunate factor in the series that shouldn't have been.

Haven't really read initial responses as this is the first time I've signed on today but this is a topic that interests me right off the bat.

More often than not, I absolutely cannot stand when fans of a team simply cannot accept that their team lost. Losing is a part of life in sports, it is going to happen. Don't get me wrong, I love watching the Wings and my other teams, rarely miss games, but my sports watching has it's place in life, and that's it. I typically don't get too pissy or glum if my team loses a game to where it ruins my daily life or work, no matter how big/little the game.

So, I cannot stand claims of bias or anti-bias or officiating or other external forces usually in a team losing more often than not. It makes fans sound bitter and whiney and like a bunch of kids.

Now, with that being said, the Sharks were the better team this series, but not that much even though they took just 5 games to win it. So I will give the Sharks their fair credit.

However, this was one of the worst officated series and handful of games, in any sport. Of course I'm a Wings fan so I'd be biased a bit more, but when you have professional analysts chiming in that the officiaing was bad, at least for one game (game 2), you know you got some problems.

I hate when fans get on soapboxes like I described above, but I absolutely also cannot stand officiating incompetency where they play a bigger hand than necessary in determining the outcomes of games. And it happened way too much this series.

I can accept that the Wings lost this series and the Sharks were the better team just enough. The officiating though was much more of a factor in this series and that is a shame. Not trying to sound pissy or making excuses, it was just an unfortunate factor in the series that shouldn't have been.

You should try being as relaxed about our opinions are you are about the games. Because we might...just might...be justified.

All penalty calls, and all goals, should be reviewable. It's not hard, it won't take very long. Ref calls a penalty, then the refs/linesman skate over to a little monitor, watch it, boom, done. We all see the replay before the next face-off anyways, why can't the refs just watch it and GET IT RIGHT 100% of the time. Plus this would get ride of the ridiculous non-reviewable goal policy. Every play should be reviewed, at least briefly. While their at it, have no touch icing. The time we save watching a guy skate for 10 seconds, the refs can allocate that time to reviewing calls.

All penalty calls, and all goals, should be reviewable. It's not hard, it won't take very long. Ref calls a penalty, then the refs/linesman skate over to a little monitor, watch it, boom, done. We all see the replay before the next face-off anyways, why can't the refs just watch it and GET IT RIGHT 100% of the time. Plus this would get ride of the ridiculous non-reviewable goal policy. Every play should be reviewed, at least briefly. While their at it, have no touch icing. The time we save watching a guy skate for 10 seconds, the refs can allocate that time to reviewing calls.

I completely agree about all goals being reviewable, but not all plays. What happens when there's a penalty called, a couple minutes go by while they review it (to do it fairly will take multiple looks, as with reviewing goals), then decide it wasn't actually a penalty? Do they give the puck back to the person who had it and let them go back at it? Going to a face-off seems unfair when one team had possession of the puck.

And how about when the refs miss one? If someone else is reviewing it in the booth or wherever, do they roll the clock back to when the penalty happened even though the play has gone on?

And what about all of those borderline calls? Obviously there are calls that could go either way and there's a case to be made on either side. Do we hold a little court? Do all of the refs get a vote (I'm assuming there is a video review person in your scenario)? Or do they send it to Ottawa?

I don't think there is a perfect system, and of the flawed options I'm okay with the one we have.